This is a bit of a prompt… so feel free to continue this chapter however you like, I'm not sure if I want to do it myself. I will have to see if my muse sends me more impulses.

Chapter 1

After the door fell shut and the car started Lori turned around and hurled the just washed off coffee mug against the white wall across from her. With a crack it shattered into a million pieces and spread over the kitchen floor. Lori leaned back against the sink trying to regain some of her equilibrium, why the hell did Rick always have to try to reason everything out? Why, why, why? Feeling tired all of sudden Lori's shoulders slumped and the invisible hand around her heart pressed down. Dryly she swallowed before she moved over to the cupboard to take out the broom to clean up the mess she had made.
Thinking back on the most recent fight Lori felt even worse, it wasn't even like Rick was the only one at fault there but he should know better than contradict her when she told Carl no. His math tests had been getting worse and worse in the last few weeks and he needed to realize the consequences of not studying for school. Lori knew that the game this weekend was pretty important for their home team but damn it, Carl needed to learn to face the consequences of his actions. Their son had started to test his limits throughout the last months and was ruthlessly exploiting every weak moment of both her and Rick. So it was really not a good time to let him bend the rules in the ways he wanted. But no, Rick had to give in after measly five minutes of their son begging. It wasn't him that had to deal with the consequences of Carl's rebellious phase after all; it was her that had to deal with it every single day while Rick was at work. Frustrated Lori walked into the laundry room and started to pick the clothes together for the next load.

Housewife, she thought bitterly. Who would have thought that she would become a housewife right out of high school? She had had so much expectations from her life after graduation and even more than a hand full of decent universities to choose from when she graduated as second best of their year. Well and then the condom burst and they conceived Carl. Sighing once more Lori felt guilty, she loved her son, she really did and she didn't regret having him but his conception had been badly time and now here she was. Nearly thirty, never having worked a day in her life with a son that was starting his teens and a husband that was becoming more and more distant from her with each day.
Finishing with her housework Lori sighed and found the newspaper, it was time to search for something that occupied her time other than the damn cleaning. Her aggressive mood was after all not only Rick's and Carl's fault. Lori was going stir crazy with the monotone motions of her daily routine and really wanted something that would challenge her mind.

Lori came out of her light nap against the car window, her mouth was dry and her body was sticking uncomfortably from the half dried sweat that had been running down her body since the early morning hours. The sun was beating down on Shane's jeep and even the slightly cracked open windows didn't help to alleviate the humid heat. Thinking back on her dream Lori smiled sardonically, hadn't she wished to escape her daily routine? Well a change was it alright but it felt like something more out of a horror movie than a distraction of her daily life.

The brown haired woman sighed while her thoughts went back to the last three weeks. It all began when Rick had been shot… at that time she had thought it couldn't get worse. Her husband was in a coma, the bank had come knocking because of the still open mortgage, the additional hospital bills had started piling on her kitchen table and Carl had been inconsolable about his father's state.
And then the strange news reports and broadcasts had begun and Lori had become unexplainably nervous. Her gut had clenched whenever she heard of another of these strange occurrences and she had tracked the movement of the sightings all over the country. When the unexplainable bad feeling had become too much for her to deal with she had even told Shane about it. Rick's partner and one of their best friends had tried to alleviate her fears but she had felt a storm coming at them and nothing Shane had said could calm her down.

When the news about blockages turned up Lori had started to hoard cans and non perishables and had given Carl strict instructions about curfew and strange happenings. Her boy was told to come home straight away if anything and she meant ANYTHING was looking fishy to him. She had reassured him that she would deal with the fallout if it was a false alarm but her instincts were going haywire and if there was one thing Lori had learned during her thirty years of life than to trust her gut feeling.

When she was thirteen this feeling had saved her and her two girlfriends from a pedophile rapist that had waited in front of their school and was handing out flyers for dancing lessons. Lori had taken one look at the stranger and outright dragged her friends away from the seemingly nice man before telling her parents about what had happened. The police had thankfully caught him in time before he could entice one of their classmates to go with him but since then Lori had listened whenever her body told her that something was not right.

And unfortunately she was right. The day one of Carl's classmates had come into the school room with a very high fever and had promptly been sent to the school nurse Carl had packed his things after the first hour and rushed home. It had probably saved his life. Only half an hour after Carl had returned Shane had burst into their house and told them to pack while he got Rick, and then it had only gotten worse.

Turning her head to check on Carl her eyes fell on the pile of bags and boxes beside him, the sight made Lori smile ironically. She was good at handling pressure, hell she was working a lot more efficient under pressure than when she had all the time in the world; the adrenaline helped her to make fast and thorough decisions. As it turned out calculating the odds and triaging what had to be done was one of her greatest talents and that had been hidden until the day the dead had started to walk again. Since this whole mess began Lori's brain was constantly recalculating everything around her and her mind came up with plans and back up plans to secure their continued survival. Questions like what would they need, what would they do, what, what, what were now occupying her daily routine instead of driving Carl to football practice or making dinner.

Sighing Lori stretched her hands a bit, Shane in the driver seat sent her a quick glance and a tight smile, the brunette answered in kind and then concentrated back onto the street and the glimmering heat in front of them while her thoughts started to fly once more.

When Shane had told her to pack because they were going to Atlanta to the refugee center Lori had become grim with determination. She had told Carl to run into the pantry and move the boxes full of cans she had bought the day before to the front door. Bewildered her son had done what she had wanted while Lori packed in a hurry three bags for her, Carl and Rick before moving onto toiletries and the medicine cupboard where she just threw everything into the open bag without taking a look at the prescription bottles. She then barked at Carl to get the camping gear from the garage. It was ironic, Rick had promised to take Carl camping that summer and so in preparations the Grimes had stocked up on tents, sleeping bags and cooking gear only a month ago, well this was now coming in handy. Shoes, blankets and rain gear was the next on Lori's mental list and she threw said things into the still empty sport bag of Rick before she started to move out the mineral water bottles and stacked everything on the front lawn. A quick glance around the neighborhood showed that she wasn't the only one moving around hastily, across from her she saw Susan Miller move her three kids into the car. The blonde woman nodded grimly at her, a silent goodbye that Lori answered with one of her own, this was going to be bad they both knew it. Turing around to run into the house once more Lori was confronted with the Grimes family picture. Choked up she moved to the living room cupboard and removed the photo albums and loose pictures and hastily crammed them into the bags between the clothes. Carl in the mean time came running with the camping gear; Lori joined him and moved the portable cooker to the front lawn. Once that was done she told her son to get up into his room and get his plush elephant and favorite soccer ball and to pack his backpack full with card games and some pencil and paper. Lori herself went into the master bedroom and removed Rick's backup weapons and ammunition from the locked box underneath their bed before moving them into her own backpack along with two books, her mobile charger and some flashlights with backup batteries.

When Shane returned she was just hauling out the last of the food in the fridge while Carl sat on the front porch and watched the happenings on the street nervously, things had already begun to turn into chaos. When screams started to echo from only a few streets over her boy had shuddered and looked beyond terrified but Lori had no time to take him into her arms, she was too busy checking that she had everything they would need.

Shane's jeep had let her sigh in relief and hope against all odds that everything would turn out fine. This was nearly instantly crushed and a sinking feeling was settling in her stomach when she couldn't find Rick's figure in Shane's car. Lori had asked after Rick anyway, the way Shane had shaken his head while he couldn't meet her eyes had been answer enough.

It had hit Lori in that moment like a ton of bricks, she was a widow. Rick, her husband was dead.

Swallowing dryly she moved numbly to the car, Carl beside her was whimpering, unable to express his distress and devastation. The only thing she could do in this pre-apocalyptic chaos was to hold onto her son with a nearly painful grip while Shane loaded up the Jeep.

While Shane was occupied, Lori who was unable to keep still and after securing Carl in the back of the Jeep the brunette walked into the house once more. This building had been her home for the last ten years and she had a sinking feeling that she would not return to it for a very long time. Hesitating in front of the entrance hall mirror Lori hastily tore off a note from the post it block on the small table and wrote on it 'GOING TO ATLANTA WITH SHANE'. She stuck it to the mirror and afixed it with an additional piece of adhesive tape that stood innocently beside the small handmade pot filled with pencils. She wasn't sure why she had the sudden impulse to leave behind a message, or for what purpose but it felt important to memorialize what had happened to the people that had lived in this house. To leave something behind that would give whoever walked into it after them an idea of what were their last actions should they never return. Lori's stomach twisted uncomfortable as she looked at the small piece of paper, this small act of hers made what was happening frightening real and she feared that time was running out for them faster than she realized.

Biting her lip strong enough to draw blood Lori left the house behind without another glance. She didn't bother with closing the front door; she had a feeling that it wasn't important anymore.

From now on it would be survival of the fittest.